e floor, not more
than an arm's length from him? Why, naturally, he would have no respect
for her. How could he? she asked herself.

As for Gabriel, he was sublimely unconscious of the fact that he was not
alone. Once or twice he fancied he heard some one breathing, but he was
a lad who was very close to nature, and he knew how many strange and
varied sounds rise mysteriously out of the most profound silence; and
so, instead of becoming suspicious, he became drowsy. He made himself as
comfortable as he could, and leaned against the wall, pitting his
patience against the loneliness of the place and the slow passage of
time.

Being a healthy lad, Gabriel would have gone to sleep then and there,
but for a mysterious splutter and explosion, so to speak, which went off
right at his elbow, as he supposed. He was in that neutral territory
between sleeping and waking and he was unable to recognise the sound
that had startled him; and it would have remained a mystery but for the
fact that a sneeze is usually accompanied by its twin. Nan had for some
time felt an inclination to sneeze, and the more she tried to resist it
the greater the inclination grew, until finally, it culminated in the
spluttering explosion that had aroused Gabriel. This was followed by a
sneeze which he had no difficulty in recognising.

The fact that some unknown person was a joint occupant of the closet
upset him so little that he was surprised at himself. He remained
perfectly quiet for awhile, endeavouring to map out a course of action,
little knowing that Nan Dorrington was chewing her nails with anger a
few feet from where he sat.

"Who are you?" he asked finally. He spoke in a firm low tone.

In another moment Nan's impulsiveness would have betrayed her, but Tasma
Tid came to her rescue.

"Huccum you in we house? Whaffer you come dey? How you call you' name?"

"Oh, shucks! Is that you, Tiddy Me Tas?"--this was the way Gabriel
sometimes twisted her name. "I thought you were the booger-man. You'd
better run along home to your Miss Nan. She says she wants to see you.
What are you hiding out here for anyway?"

"We no hide, Misser Gable. 'Tis-a we house, dis. Honey Nan no want we;
she no want nobody. She talkin' by dat Misser Frank what live-a down dey
at Clopton. Dee got cake, dee got wine, dee got all de bittle dee want."

Tasma Tid told this whopper in spite of the fact that Nan was giving her
warning nudges and pinches.

"Yes, I reckon they